11mo ago

Instagram-famous squirrel Peanut euthanized after it was taken from owner's New York state home

www.nbcnews.com

Peanut, who has amassed more than half a million Instagram followers, was euthanized by officials to be tested for rabies.

Peanut, the Instagram-famous squirrel that was seized from its owner's home Wednesday, has been euthanized by New York state officials.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation took Peanut, as well as a raccoon named Fred, on Wednesday after the agency learned the animals were “sharing a residence with humans, creating the potential for human exposure to rabies," it said in a joint statement with the Chemung County Department of Health.

Both Peanut and Fred were euthanized to test for rabies, the statement said. It was unclear when the animals were euthanized.

119 comments

Okay, I was initially totally against the DEC but reading the article really changed my mind. You need a license to own wild animals in NY. Ya know cause they should not be pets... also wildlife rehabilitation requires a license and training. Also rehabilitating means returning them to the wild. Not to mention an extra license and training for animals that are common carriers of rabies.
He has a squirrel for 7 years as a pet without a license with zero intention to rehabilitate his animals. He was using them to make money. Getting them to do tricks, wear hats and clothes. He essentially had a roadside zoo, but his customers were online. He says he was in the process of getting a license. He had the squirrel for 7 years, and was actively collecting more animals. This guy sucks, no wonder people were reporting him.
- Oh man I don't enjoy being that guy right now but for the love of all, It's CUSTOMERS. Costumers are people who work in dress-up.
  I've only seen this in the past few years, but it's become such a common mistake. I don't understand it.
  Sorry, I mean you're making a salient point about the lack of a license and all. Even so, if he's been caring for the squirrel domestically for seven years, where do they think the supposed rabies would have come from? It doesn't just manifest.
  
  All these mistakes grind my gears, but this one is especially bad. Some of them make sense because of the way the word is pronounced.
  Who is out there saying costumers instead of customers? Nobody says it like that.
  
  but it’s become such a common mistake. I don’t understand it.
  Yeah, like how common loose instead of lose, and rouge instead of rogue is.
  
  Naw it's all good thanks! I'm dyslexic so I swap the vowels, I've always done it. Lol
  They recently obtained a raccoon. Which are one of the most common animals to get rabies. He also attempted to release the squirrel when it was 8 months old. It came back injured. It could have been infected then, rabies can lie dormant for years.
  
  Well... It's English. Y'all's vowels are 90 % schwa and half of the rest is completely dependent on the accent.
  "Cuh-stuh-muh". Same vowel. If English's spelling was to be redone, I vote for a hangul-style writing system but with the vowels only implied: kx/stx/mx.
- I feel like I’m going nuts, is nobody on lemmy actually reading this article? This dude turbo sucked.
  Longo brought Peanut him home, ultimately caring for the squirrel for eight months before trying to release it back into the wild. He said Peanut returned to his porch a day and a half later with a broken bone sticking out of its tail, at which point Longo determined Peanut couldn't survive in the wild alone and instead would move in with him.
  Didn’t get him veterinary care though, because that would have resulted in his Cool Pet being taken away. What’s wrong with a little risk of sepsis and zero pain control for a serious injury if someone really, really wants to be a special boy??
  
  Few people read the article. That takes extra clicks, time, and effort. People like to read the headline and work off assumptions.
  
  Oh yeah, this guy sucks. He was using the squirrel as a money-making scheme. Check out his website if you want to get more angry.
- A wildlife rehabilitator (Nessie) on TikTok pointed out that his squirrel and his raccoon would not have had access to veterinary care (ie, vaccination for rabies).
  She also pointed out that showcasing wildlife in social media is currently unregulated - in person exhibitions requiring an expensive license to get. This is a bit of a loophole, and what that guy did is likely to get that loophole closed up, and impact sanctuaries that do operate within the current law while using social media platforms to fundraise.
  Also, personally, the way he showcased the animals just seemed inappropriate - squirrels eating human food just seems problematic. Iirc he ran a domestic rescue, not a wildlife rescue, which is a different skill set. Wildlife rescuers avoid interacting with animals as much as possible. Animals aren’t toys and don’t have the same kinds of needs we do, and the fact they are cute shouldn’t complicate our emotions.
  
  Social media is unregulated but owning them isn't. He needed a license to keep them, which he didn't have. And the "sanctuary" is just for domestics that was started last year. The website sells t shirts and options for donations. It seems like they got internet famous because of the squirrel and opened this as a way to make money.
- I read the article and can’t believe someone could read the same thing and come away thinking, “this guys sucks.”
- It's been interesting seeing people's reactions to this versus Tiger King.
  
  Yea, when it's a tiger its bad but when its a squirrel it's ok. Plus big cat rescue (Carroll Baskins rescue) actually has licenses, State organizations regularly send seized animals to them, and they have an active program to rehabilitate wild bobcats.
The only charge is "potential to spread rabies" and they killed the animal to test for that (for some reason). So, if the test comes back negative, they will make full repariations right?
- full repariations
  And surely such reparations would take into account future lost revenue, as they would be expected to it this were a regular person against a corporation.
  Surely.
  
  Sadly I think the monetary value of a cat is like $15 reimbursed. I imagine a squirrel is worth even less.
- It's because rabies infects the brains of animals, so that's the tissue that is tested.
  I'm wondering why the people who were caring for the animals didn't just get them rabies shots in the first place.
  
  I wonder why animal control officers who handle animals suspected of having rabies DON'T HAVE THEIR FUCKING RABIES VACCINATION. I needed a thousand dollar shot just to volunteer for a fucking animal shelter.
  
  to test for rabies, couldnt they have just observed the animal in some quarantine for the gestation period of the disease?
  
  Rabies vaccine is only made for a handful of animals. For example a vaccine is made for domestic sheep but not for domestic goats. Goats and sheep are closely enough related that goats owners have their animals vaccinated using the sheep vaccinations but since they have not been officially tested, you can't say the animals have been vaccinated for rabies in a legal capacity so the petting zoo has a big sign about the rabies risk in goats.
  I think this is mostly a case on NY state's sick of people ignoring their wild animal laws and with NYC especially they can't allow for people to just keep whatever animal they want and think it's okay. If Peanuts owner had been licensed as an actual wildlife rehab, it would have been different but wildlife are not pets even when they are friendly.
  
  Likely because it is illegal to keep wildlife as pets.
  
  Since keeping the squirrel was stupidly illegal, he couldn't get a rabies shot for it at a vet.
- Unfortunately rabies testing requires samples of the brain. This is why if you are bitten by an animal you suspect of having rabies, a professional should catch it and test the animal. The tests that exist for diagnosis in living humans are not reliable.
  https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/laboratories/diagnostic.html#:~:text=Rabies%20testing%20requires%20that%20the,after%20an%20animal%20is%20euthanized.
  In this case I didn't open the story to see why they believed a domesticated squirrel needed to be tested.
  Edit: somebody that didn't interact with the animals complained they might have rabies?
  
  No. Its illegal to own as a pet. Someone reported him for that. When they were collecting peanut he bit someone and That's why they put him down.
That guy sucks for keeping wild animals without the proper certification and training resulting in no medical care for the animals.
At the same time I'm also skeptical of how the state handled it because I feel it's important to remember that policies and how situations are handled can always use improvement.
For example, how did the investigator get bitten? Were they wearing proper protective gear and following procedure? Was he or she properly trained to detain animals like a squirrel? If the state is going to send people to confiscate wild animals a bite incident is a big fucking deal and there should be an internal investigation as to how that happened. For both the future safety of the employees and animals.
This whole situation sucks.
- I think this is a fantastic story of perspective. Not doing the bare minimum to ensure you retain control over the animals you claim to love (and most certainly capitalized on monetarily) vs NYS immediately escalating this to baffling levels of stupid instantly.
"What radicalised you?"
- TBH this really shouldn't radicalize you. This is what people are supposed to do when an animal bites somebody. The thing that was done incorrectly was creating a situation where an animal could bite a person.
  
  They caused the animal to bite, they kinda deserve it, no?
  Besides, they probably got vaccinated for rabies regardless? That's the only thing you can do..
  
  Maybe the squirrel bit that guy because the squirrel knew deep down that guy was here to fuck up the squirrels life which he did by inserting himself into the situation.
- This would be my villain origin story when they are talking about "what drove him to commit atrocities"
  
  Squirrel girl (a way op char), but like in Squirrel girl: The extinction of humans.
Disgusting, FYI yes squirrels can carry rabies, but it is extremely, I say again EXTREMELY rare, and transmission to a human via a squirrel is even MORE rare than that. Typically rabies just outright kills small rodents such as squirrels
- It isn't that the virus outright kills them. They just typically don't get close enough to animals that could infect them. They are prey animals so they wouldn't approach infected animals, they would run. They are also very small so the initial bite or scratch that could infect them kills them before they actually develop the disease. But a squirrel living with a raccoon because some guy thought it was cute. Yea, that would do it
- It is rare, but it may be worth pointing out a celebrity Squirrel will have much more frequent contact with humans than a wild Squirrel.
  From reading the article, they would have been OK to keep the animals as long as they didn't stay in the home.
- Oh, in that case it's totally fine and nothing to worry about at all.
The statement said one of the officials involved in the investigation into Peanut and Fred was bitten by the squirrel.
Sorry but they had no real choice on this one. Vaccines can and should be administered immediately to any human bitten by an animal in all cases, but vaccines are not foolproof and the animals must be tested. The only method to test for rabies is removal of brain tissue.
Just because a wild animal is docile to some humans or has its own social media account does not mean they are pets and they should never have been in this situation unless the property owner was a certified rescue and rehab.
- The dude had started getting his certification seeing as the squirrel didn't want to return to nature and had become domesticated when the raid happened. The owner wanted to be in line with the law, but that apparently just put a giant flag on him. Also, do they have to conduct a surprise raid instead of just approaching the guy and attempting to be civil with him? I saw no information that a civil approach was taken.
  
  The NBCNews article doesn't mention the word raid anywhere, it says inspection. If you know more about the story then your words are plausible but going by the article your account doesn't match. The owner waited 7 years to try for certification, supposedly.
- I don't think the government needed to get involved. If this guy was hoarding animals then okay. He had a squirrel and the gov't killed it? Thank you gov't I really feel safer now knowing you killed this guy's squirrel.
  
  He had two wild animals, the first one for at least 7 years, and was making income from them without ever getting certification to house them. These rules exist to protect people and animals from harm.
  The Guv'ment doesn't just break in and trash the place, kill the animals, for shits and giggles. I'm sure they would much rather be somewhere else far away from this shitshow. Blaming the inspector is victim blaming.
- but vaccines are not foolproof
  Yes they are. Only pointing out so there is not unnecessary fear spread about rabies. It is 100% preventable before or after exposure.
  Does the rabies vaccine work? The rabies vaccine works remarkably well. Studies indicate that if the vaccine is given immediately and appropriately to someone who was bitten by a rabid animal, it is 100 percent effective.
  https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-details/rabies-vaccine
- You can put the animals in isolation
  
  But you cannot test for rabies without killing the animal. Rabies infections spread up the nervous system to the brain in hours, not weeks.
  The animal bit a human, at that point nothing could be done.
Wild squirrels are not legal pets in NY—not that the legality necessitates this cruel outcome.
- Squirrels don't normally carry rabies.
  While not impossible, it's actually considered near impossible by experts. For whatever reason, smaller mammals seem to simply not be affected by rabies.
  
  Because they generally die before they infect others. They absolutely can get rabies. I have never seen anyone say it's "near impossible" except pro-wild-animals-as-pets "experts".
- There were no other options, imo. The inspector who was bitten likely did get a vaccine immediately, but vaccines are not guaranteed to work. There is no reliable way to test an animal for rabies without killing it.
  These rules exist to help people and animals, and law enforcement followed them all to the letter.
  
  The vaccines are not guaranteed to work, so we must sacrifice the animal in a prayer to ensure they do
- Yes but government is ultimately good and does much good. Our politicians are mostly good (there's 500,000+) because it's people like us standing up to work policy. The idea that our government is innately bad and that it's just bad people doing bad things is so tiring.
What a depressing story
Ridiculous and wholly unnecessary government overreach. Every official that touched this should be fired and publicly dragged through the mud.
My squirrel moment. Kill these heartless bureaucratic fuckers. It is a human filth that doesn’t belong to the civilised world
- Unfortunately the animal bit a person, so they had no real choice in the matter. There is no reliable way to test for rabies without killing the animal, and vaccines are not guaranteed to prevent spreading infection.
  
  This is such fucking bullshit, so you corner an animal, it bites you, then you shoot the animal because it bit you?
  I hope you never own or work with animals.
  
  Both these animals bit someone?
It would be a shame if 4chan somehow found out who reported the guy. And decided to serve justice "their own way" =)
(i know i'm risking my account but it's worth it just this once)
- It sounds like the squirrel bit someone and then showed signs of rabies
  
  No, just a sociopath decided to fuck with this one person's life.
After reading the whole thing, this is heartbreaking
Harambe 2.0
We just jumped timelines again.
- Man, I hope this one's the right track. Last one was a fucking rollercoaster loop.
Bureaucracy saves the day! /s
- I don't think bureaucracy or bureaucrats did this - just sadists loving their job.
Oops! They didn't have rabies! Here you go! They're in the bag.
The Harambe of our times
- Dicks out for Peanut.
I read this article a couple days ago. It reminded me of this short tale:
https://youtube.com/shorts/GUtBjDYBOhU?si=-hXDUDwelGAWdhtl
Woman couldn't let dude have a squirrel, a flipping squirrel.
"I was just going through our daily routine of feeding all of our 71 rescued horses"
Okay now he's just flexing

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